Re: autoreconf not passing -I option to aclocal

[Stepan Kasal]

Hello Guillaume,

On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 03:44:30PM +0200, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
> [...] aclocal is useful even when you don't use automake, for
> importing your own macros as in my case, [...]

I agree with you, ...

> Anyway, my tests show that [aclocal] is called unconditionally.

... and autoreconf agrees with us, too.  ;-)

In this context, is seems a bit unfortunate that aclocal is
distributed in the Automake package, but that's the way it is.

The -I option of autoconf is where the _included_ files are searched
for.  For example, if your configure.ac contained
        m4_include([foobar.m4])
then the -I options specify where foobar.m4 might be found.
(Though adding  m4_include([ocaml.m4])  to the top of your
configure.ac might be a usable workaround for your problem, I do
not think it is ``the right way.'')

autoheader and autoupdate have the same -I option as autoconf.
The -I option of autoreconf is corresponding to this -I.

aclocal's -I option is somewhat different: it specifies the search
path for *.m4 files with individual macro definitions.

This explains why we were reluctant to pass autoconf's -I options as
the -I options to aclocal.
But I understand it generates much confusion, so it seems we might
reconsider the decision.  Actually, if we passed the -I options from
autoreconf to aclocal, would it break anything?  If not, we might do
it.

(After all, the aclocal -I option is the only widely popular here.
Almost noone uses autoconfs -I and -B options, the -I only pops up
when someone confuses it with aclocal's -I.)

Opinions from others are welcome.

At the end, I would like to return to this:

On Thu, Sep 28, 2006 at 03:09:39PM +0200, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
> Eric Blake wrote:
> > Sounds like you forgot to do
> > ACLOCAL_AMFLAGS = -I ../autoconf
> >
> > in your Makefile.am.
> I forgot to precise that I'm not using automake...
 
Well, the above advice works even if you are not using automake:
The presence of Makefile.am should not cause problems; autoreconf
recognizes that you are not using automake because configure.ac does
not call AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE.  But autoreconf greps Makefile.am for that
assignment, even in that case.

I understand it looks ugly, and it might confuse people, though.

Stepan Kasal